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I Certainly Don't Sit Down And Plan A Book Out Before I Write It. There's A Phrase I Use Called "the Valley Full Of Clouds." Writing A Novel Is As If You Are Going Off On A Journey Across A Valley. The Valley Is Full Of Mist, But You Can See The Top Of A Tree Here And The Top Of Another Tree Over There. And With Any Luck You Can See The Other Side Of The Valley. But You Cannot See Down Into The Mist. Nevertheless, You Head For The First Tree.

-Terry Pratchett

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I Certainly Don't Sit

Terry Pratchett

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I Certainly Don't Sit Down And Plan A Book Out Before I Write It. There's A Phrase I Use Called "the Valley Full Of Clouds." Writing A Novel Is As If You Are Going Off On A Journey Across A Valley. The Valley Is Full Of Mist, But You Can See The Top Of A Tree Here And The Top Of Another Tree Over There. And With Any Luck You Can See The Other Side Of The Valley. But You Cannot See Down Into The Mist. Nevertheless, You Head For The First Tree.

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Whatever Happens, They Say Afterwards, It Must Have Been Fate. People Are Always A Little Confused About This, As They Are In The Case Of Miracles. When Someone Is Saved From Certain Death By A Strange Concatenation Of Circumstances, They Say That's A Miracle. But Of Course If Someone Is Killed By A Freak Chain Of Events -- The Oil Spilled Just There, The Safety Fence Broken Just There -- That Must Also Be A Miracle. Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

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Sister Mary Was A Nurse And Nurses, Whatever Their Creed, Are Primarily Nurses, Which Had A Lot To Do With Wearing Your Watch Upside Down, Keeping Calm In Emergencies, And Dying For A Cup Of Tea.

All Property Is Theft, Except Mine.

I'm Not The World's Greatest Expert, But I Would Have Thought That The Wizards, Witches, Trolls, Unicorns, ... Broomsticks And Spells Would Have Given Her A Clue?' - When J.k. Rowling Insisted She Wasn't Writing Fantasy.

It Is Said That Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Make Mad. In Fact, Whomsoever The Gods Wish To Destroy, They First Hand The Equivalent Of A Stick With A Fizzing Fuse And Acme Dynamite Company Written On The Side. It's More Interesting, And Doesn't Take So Long.

What's The Good Of Having Mastery Over Cosmic Balance And Knowing The Secrets Of Fate If You Can't Blow Something Up?

The Thief, As Will Become Apparent, Was A Special Type Of Thief. This Thief Was An Artist Of Theft. Other Thieves Merely Stole Everything That Was Not Nailed Down, But This Thief Stole The Nails As Well.

Sometimes You Had To Take A Look At Yourself And Then Look Away.

Look At Yourself

Books Must Be Treated With Respect, We Feel That In Our Bones, Because Words Have Power. Bring Enough Words Together They Can Bend Space And Time.

Humans Need Fantasy In Order To Be Human.

You Just Put That Sword Away, Sir, Please," Said The Voice Of Lance-constable Vimes. "you Will Not Shoot Me, You Young Idiot. That Would Be Murder," Said The Captain Calmly. "not Where I'm Aiming, Sir.

Vampires Have Risen From The Dead, The Grave, And The Crypt, But Have Never Managed It From The Cat.

If My Father Could Have Sat Up In Bed And Said Goodbye, I'd Have Pressed The Button. I Wouldn't Have Been Able To See For Crying, But I Would Have Considered That A Duty.

There Were Two Ways Of Looking At The World, But Only One When You Are Starving.

Bringing About Armageddon Can Be Dangerous. Do Not Attempt It In Your Own Home.

Guilt Was The Grease In Which The Wheels Of The Authority Turned.

No One Thinks That Young Adults Read Hooks For Young Adults, Books For Young Adults Are Read By Kids.

Ordinary Fortune-tellers Tell You What You Want To Happen; Witches Tell You What’s Going To Happen Whether You Want It To Or Not. Strangely Enough, Witches Tend To Be More Accurate But Less Popular.

There Is Always Time For Another Last Minute

She Was Beautiful, But She Was Beautiful In The Way A Forest Fire Was Beautiful: Something To Be Admired From A Distance, Not Up Close.

Money Makes People Rich; It Is A Fallacy To Think It Makes Them Better, Or Even That It Makes Them Worse. People Are What They Do, And What They Leave Behind.

Some Humans Would Do Anything To See If It Was Possible To Do It. If You Put A Large Switch In Some Cave Somewhere, With A Sign On It Saying 'end-of-the-world Switch. Please Do Not Touch,' The Paint Wouldn't Even Have Time To Dry.

I Was Just A Kid Then. But I Won't Forget. Nor Will Others. There's Lots Of People With Reason To Hate The Church.

He Felt That The Darkness Was Full Of Unimaginable Horrors - And The Trouble With Unimaginable Horrors Was That They Were Only Too Easy To Imagine.

It's Hard To Explain," Said Brutha. "but I Think It's Got Something To Do With How People Should Behave... You Should Do Things Because They're Right. Not Because Gods Say So. They Might Say Something Different Another Time.

A Hardback's Harder At Christmas Time Because That's A Good Hardback Buying Time.

I Staggered Into A Manchester Bar Late One Night On A Tour And The Waitress Said "you Look As If You Need A Screaming Orgasm". At The Time This Was The Last Thing On My Mind.

God Moves In Extremely Mysterious, Not To Say, Circuitous Ways. God Does Not Play Dice With The Universe; He Plays An Ineffable Game Of His Own Devising, Which Might Be Compared, From The Perspective Of Any Of The Other Players, Ie., Everybody, To Being Involved In An Obscure And Complex Version Of Poker In A Pitch-dark Room, With Blank Cards, For Infinite Stakes, With A Dealer Who Won't Tell You The Rules, And Who Smiles All The Time.

There Is Always A Choice." "you Mean I Could Choose Certain Death?" "a Choice Nevertheless, Or Perhaps An Alternative. You See I Believe In Freedom. Not Many People Do, Although They Will Of Course Protest Otherwise. And No Practical Definition Of Freedom Would Be Complete Without The Freedom To Take The Consequences. Indeed, It Is The Freedom Upon Which All The Others Are Based.

Dwarfs Were Not A Naturally Religious Species, But In A World Where Pit Props Could Crack Without Warning And Pockets Of Fire Damp Could Suddenly Explode They'd Seen The Need For Gods As The Sort Of Supernatural Equivalent Of A Hard Hat. Besides, When You Hit Your Thumb With An Eight-pound Hammer It's Nice To Be Able To Blaspheme. It Takes A Very Special And Strong-minded Kind Of Atheist To Jump Up And Down With Their Hand Clasped Under Their Other Armpit And Shout, "oh, Random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" Or "aaargh, Primitive-and-outmoded-concept On A Crutch!

You Couldn't Say 'i Had Orders.' You Couldn't Say 'it's Not Fair.' No One Was Listening. There Were No Words. You Owned Yourself. [...] Not 'thou Shalt Not'. Say 'i Will Not'.

When I Am Old I Shall Wear Midnight.

Every Step Is A First Step If It's A Step In The Right Direction.

The Yen Buddhists Are The Richest Religious Sect In The Universe. They Hold That The Accumulation Of Money Is A Great Evil And A Burden To The Soul. They Therefore, Regardless Of Personal Hazard, See It As Their Unpleasant Duty To Acquire As Much As Possible In Order To Reduce The Risk To Innocent People.

Were You Proposing To Shoot These People In Cold Blood, Sergeant?" "nossir. Just A Warning Shot Inna Head, Sir.

- I Notice You Didn't Laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We Are Forbidden To Laugh At The Things Kings Say, Sire, Because Otherwise We Would Be At It All Day.

He Said It Was Better To Belong Where You Don't Belong Than Not To Belong Where You Used To Belong, Remembering When You Used To Belong There.

Once Upon A Time The Plural Of 'wizard' Was 'war'.

Once Upon A Time

Be Careful What You Wish For. You Never Know Who Will Be Listening.

One Day A Tortoise Will Learn How To Fly.

Did I Do Anything Last Night That Suggested I Was Sane?

When You're All Singing Together, It Brings Things Together. I Know The Songs That My Grandfather And My Father Sang.

Ah," Said Mr Pin. "right. I Remember. You Are Concerned Citizens." He Knew About Concerned Citizens. Wherever They Were, They All Spoke The Same Private Language, Where 'traditional Values' Meant 'hang Someone'.

Everything Is A Test.

We Are Monkeys. We Like To Chatter. Chattering Doesn't Cost Us Anything.

I Would Like Permission To Fetch A Note From My Mother, Sir' Ridcully Sighed. 'rincewind, You Once Informed Me, To My Everlasting Puzzlement, That You Never Knew Your Mother Because She Ran Away Before You Were Born. Distinctly Remember Writing It Down In My Diary. Would You Like Another Try?' 'permission To Go And Find My Mother?'

And What Do You Really Do? Asked Tiffany. The Thin Witch Hesitatied For A Moment, And Then: We Look To ... The Edges, Said Mistress Weatherwax. There's A Lot Of Edges, More Than People Know. Between Life And Death, This World And The Next, Night And Day, Right And Wrong ... An' They Need Watchin'. We Watch 'em, We Guard The Sum Of Things. And We Never Ask For Any Reward. That's Important.

It Doesn't Matter How You Live And Die, It's How The Bards Wrote It Down.

Hello, Inner Child, I'm The Inner Babysitter!

No More Words. We Know Them All, All The Words That Should Not Be Said. But You Have Made My World More Perfect.

Even Our Fears Make Us Feel Important, Because We Fear We Might Not Be.

Rincewind Tried To Force The Memory Out Of His Mind, But It Was Rather Enjoying Itself There, Terrorizing The Other Occupants And Kicking Over The Furniture.

He Had About The Same Life Expectancy As A Three Legged Hedgehog On A Six Lane Motorway.

Are You A Devious, Plotting, Unreliable Madman? Ah, Good, Then You Can Be My Most Trusted Advisor.

Interesting Times

No One's Policing Their Own Minds More Than An Author. You Spend A Lot Of Time In Your Own Head Analysing What You Think About Things, And A Philosophy Comes.

We Who Think We Are About To Die Will Laugh At Anything.

Questions Don't Have To Make Sense, Vincent," Said Miss Susan. "but Answers Do.

And All Those Exclamation Marks, You Notice? Five? A Sure Sign Of Someone Who Wears His Underpants On His Head.

Exclamation Marks

Neither Of My Parents Went To Church, But They Did Everything That You Needed To Do To Be Christian. That's Something A Quaker Would Call An Intimation Of The Divine.

Hat = Wizard, Wizard = Hat. Everything Else Is Frippery.

In An Instant He Became Aware That The Tourist Was About To Try His Own Peculiar Brand Of Linguistics, Which Meant That He Would Speak Loudly And Slowly In His Own Language.

Carpe Jugulum," Read Agnes Aloud. "that's... Well, Carpe Diem Is 'sieze The Day,' So This Means-" "go For The Throat

Wizards Don't Believe In Gods In The Same Way That Most People Don't Find It Necessary To Believe In, Say, Tables. They Know They're There, They Know They're There For A Purpose, They'd Probably Agree That They Have A Place In A Well-organised Universe, But They Wouldn't See The Point Of Believing, Of Going Around Saying "o Great Table, Without Whom We Are As Naught." Anyway, Either The Gods Are There Whether You Believe In Them Or Not, Or Exist Only As A Function Of The Belief, So Either Way You Might As Well Ignore The Whole Business And, As It Were, Eat Off Your Knees.

Child. That Was A Terrible Thing To Say To Anyone Who Was Almost Thirteen.

We're Philosophers. We Think, Therefore We Am.

Just Because Things Are Obvious Doesn't Mean They're True.

It Was Nice To Hear The Voices Of Little Children At Play, Provided You Took Care To Be Far Enough Away Not To Hear What They Were Actually Saying.

She Folded Her Arms And Then Shouted, "right You Thieving Scunners! How Dare You Steal Miss Treason's Funeral Meats!" "oh, Waily, Waily, It's The Foldin' O' The Arms, The Foooldin' O' The Aaaarmss!" Cried Daft Wullie, Dropping To The Ground And Trying To Cover Himself With Leaves. Around Him Feegles Started To Wail And Cower And Big Yan Began To Bang His Head On The Rear Wall Of The Dairy.

[y]ou Weren't Born With A Talent For Witchcraft: It Didn't Come Easily; You Worked Hard At It Because You Wanted It. You Forced The World To Give It To You, No Matter The Price, And The Price Is And Always Will Be High... People Say You Don't Find Witchcraft; Witchcraft Finds You. But You've Found It, Even If At The Time You Didn't Know What It Was You Were Finding, And You Grabbed It By Its Scrawny Neck And Made It Work For You.

If There Were Such A Thing As An Inter-city Thieving Contest, Ankh-morpork Would Bring Home The Trophy And Probably Everyone’s Wallets.

The Truth Is A Fog, In Which One Man Sees The Heavenly Host And The Other One Sees A Flying Elephant.

Always Remember That The Crowd That Applauds Your Coronation Is The Same Crowd That Will Applaud Your Beheading. People Like A Show.

There Was This About Vampires : They Could Never Look Scruffy. Instead, They Were... What Was The Word... Deshabille. It Meant Untidy, But With Bags And Bags Of Style.

I Don’t See Why It Matters What Is Written. Not When It’s About People. It Can Always Be Crossed Out.

It Is Often Said That Before You Die Your Life Passes Before Your Eyes. It Is In Fact True. It's Called Living.

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